How do you cope?

How do you cope
With your job
Commuting at a snail's pace
The pressure of the role
The constant competition?

How do you cope
With family life
The dirge of the school run
Heartaches and the joy
The constant worry?

How do you cope
With growing old
Fake promises of beauty products
The creaking joints
The constant exhaustion?

How do you cope?
I don't. I'm ******* exhausted.

I do not write poetry
because
Great dead men on my shelves
have done it

I must be busy with
something that's mine.

I do not write poetry
because
Birds by the millions fly
north to their own preachers

I must fly to my own east.

I do not write poetry
because
The sun dances in the sky
on a flower-filled day

I must be there to watch it.

I do not write poetry
because
Though the dogs in the yard
Have not bathed for ages

They ask for a hug
and I must give it.

I do not write poetry
because
The wounds of my past
fester now and then

I must be there to bind them.

I do not write poetry
because
The father of my children
is the best cook in the world

I must be there to love him.

I do not write poetry
because
The child wants boots
to scale his own mountain

I must be there to free him.

I do not write poety
at all--
because I live it.

Why do I love people
That cannot love me back?

"You used to be much muchier"
And why is it that
Some people never feel those attacks?
Is there such a thing as strength?
Do I always have to be that?

I thought there was a “braver” ***
So why am I always saving them?
Taking care of them,
Playing pretend
In their little sandbox of existence?

No. The goddess within
Demands
More than I can
Ever seem to attract.

Cute lil pig tails with her lil red wagon,
Freckled face waited to play all day,
He followed her to and fro,
She didn't have a word to say,      
6 years down the road, He still loved Hope,  
She rode her red bike everyday, He put a
flower in her basket without delay, She still
didnt have a word to say, 3 years later in his
red car, he gave her ride to school and back everyday, She would smile and wave, Still
never had a word to say,  5 years later on
their wedding day Gracefully stood at the
alter, And not a word she had to say, Not with her mouth anyway, With her hands she signed,
I love you, Then with tears in her eyes, Used
her hands to reply, I do, To his ears it was the most beautiful words his heart ever heard her say. ~ Anna VenJencie Arnold.

in the blue skys, I find my way
in the gray ones, I am lost
every day I walk this maze
yet still I haven't found the finish
there are so many ways to take one step
some I have forgot

being trapped in here
turned me quite the cynic
I don't trust anybody I find in it

but as long as the skies are blue
I just might find my way
I must keep fighting the fog
keep up the daily struggle
just to keep away the Haze

A halogen glow
Condensation drips
Winter pressing on the glass
This tired bus rolls on
Bring me home once more.

Everyday
she watches him
her eyes stuck
becoming a role model
for the glue of his shoes
the glue  he practically pours on
it's trying to hold all those pieces together
the pieces falling like crushed leaves from a set of hands
it knew it had a job to do
like a mother trying to hold her family together
she doesn't have enough arms to reach out to every person who needs holding
to work her 9 to 5
to pay the bills
to take care of her parents
one of whom has forgotten her name
to pretend that her marriage is fine...
for the kids sake.
the kids who watch her sulking eyes on the way to daycare
and yes she's been told that only ****** mother's put their kids in
          daycare
but that's all she can do
so shut up
just shut up

it's like the high school girl
trying to hold her heart together
it's been broken...
like the shoes
the ones on the boys feet